I cannot believe I let this book sit on my shelf for 7+ year's before reading it. Oh well, I can actually believe it, cause I read it in English first and absolutely could not keep up with the economic terms and jargon so I gave up. 

The book starts out quite slowly, Larsson definitely has a pacing-issue, but it picks up once Lisbeth Salander shows up, and then goes to another level when she and Mikael joins forces. Maybe it's on purpose... I did deduct one star for the weird product placements and the random English intersections and phrases, which were quite honestly cringy. At least you didn't have to suffer through that, English readers.

I have to say that if you're sensitive to sexual violence, rape and torture descriptions, you should think twice before reading this. I've read plenty of reviews where people comment on the amount of violence, especially sexual violence, against women. I've also read some people describe it as torture porn. The Norwegian (and Swedish) title is Men Who Hate Women, and thinking about the women in this book, I think it's perfect. 

Lisbeth, Erika, Harriet, Cecilia, and Pernilla are all women who are "hated". Lisbeth is stuck in a bureaucratic system that is in place to protect her, but instead the men in the system are taking advantage of the system and subsequently her. Erika is a hard-working boss of a magazine that exposes financial crimes and other "serious issues". She is sexually liberated and in control of her life, and yet the media always portray her as a bitch and focus merely on her appearance. And all the Vanger-women are trapped in a family with a lot of f***** up men, and have to live with that. 
Even so, all the women make their own decisions on how to handle these issues, instead of staying in the boxes that society has put them in, and I really enjoyed that. Sometimes they don't do the right thing, but we want flawed characters, right? Lisbeth confronting Armand about their relationship, and working on her own terms. Cecilia decided to engage in a sexual relationship with Mikael (and ended it when she no longer felt comfortable) even though she's been slut-shamed by her father since she was 20. 

Larsson also writes a lot of different types of men, so I don't think the "Man-hater" comments are right either. Mikael is a "good-guy" but he's not a good father, and he knows it. He also is not very good at deciphering other people's emotions. Henrik is a desperate man with a lot of success behind him, but he is also willing to cover up all the skeletons in his family's closet for the sake of his business (I mean Harriet, but the business benefits from this too).

All in all, I'm really excited to read the other books in the series